Occurrences of gun violence in the workplace or schools has been a growing problem in society today. When such environments become dangerous, often executives, school boards, front lobby, security, supervisors, principals, or persons of high positions in offices, are the most vulnerable as being potential targets. It would be advantageous to have an item typically present in an office, which easily be handled and serve as a protective device from gun violence when needed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,170,379 describes a school desk in which the entire top of the desk is bullet resistant and is releasably attached by clip(s) to the frame of the desk. Requiring the entire top of a desk to be detached from the desk frame before its use as a shield is undesirable since it delays use of the top of the desk as shield, and moreover the attaching clip(s) can jam or be difficult to release when needed. Other devices such as bulletproof clipboards as described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 7,712,408, or mouse pads, such as sold by Armor Dynamics of Kingston N.Y., are of inadequate size to protect the entire upper body (or a substantial portion thereof) when used as a shield, undesirably leaving vital areas of a user's body unprotected and thus vulnerable to gunfire.
Thus it would be desirable to provide a bulletproof shield, and particularly to an apparatus combining a bulletproof shield with a desktop item which can lie and be utilized upon the top surface of desk in an unattached relationship, and when needed be held by a user to protect substantially or entirely the upper portion of a user's body.